


The Haunting of Cartwright Manor

by Maple



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Haunted Houses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-04
Updated: 2011-04-04
Packaged: 2017-10-17 14:30:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/177845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maple/pseuds/Maple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Richie has a new job that Duncan and Methos aren't so sure about. He's hunting ghosts at a nearby mansion! Methos keeps his own secrets, and has his own reasons to make mischief. Duncan just makes coffee.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Haunting of Cartwright Manor

"Ghost hunters?" Duncan asked with barely concealed incredulousness. Behind him, on the couch, he could just about feel Methos smirking.

"Yeah," Richie gushed. "Sort of like on tv, you know? I met these two guys and this is what they do for real as their jobs. And they offered to have me join them. They're really good guys."

"They might be," Duncan said, "but it still doesn't sound like the kind of work you should get into. It might be a bit…public."

"Oh, don't worry about that. I'm behind the camera, not in front of it. So I'll never be on film. That's why they were interested in me. I was never going to steal the limelight, right?" Richie grinned. "Besides. What if there really are ghosts? I mean, there's us. And regular people would think we're proof of paranormal stuff."

"I've never seen anything paranormal that wasn't Immortal. Have you?" Duncan swung around to glare at Methos and if the man had any sense he'd answer the question wisely.

Methos shook his head. "Absolutely not. And I've very much advise against your instructing them about the happenstances of Immortality. Next thing you know, you'd be the one getting filmed."

"I'm not stupid, you know," Richie replied. "I'm not going to tell them about me. Besides, they're hunting for ghosts. I'm not a ghost, so it isn't an issue."

"Just be careful, Rich. People like that, they're just looking for answers to what is beyond the grave. They don't care where the answers come from and you'd do just as well as a ghost." Duncan hoped Richie was absorbing what he was telling him. He could never tell with Richie. He would nod his head and look like he had, but then go and do ridiculously stupid things that would show he hadn't paid an ounce of attention.

"I will be, I swear. I just wanted to give you a heads-up." Richie migrated over to the kitchen area and started to nibble at anything that was handy. He picked up an apple and took a bite.

"So, when do you start?" Methos asked. "And where? Seacouver has no shortage of haunted buildings and graveyards. Even a haunted bathroom over at the old train stop, if I remember the story correctly."

"Haunted bathroom? Puh-lease. No, this is a paying gig. Like Ghostbusters. Except we're just taking video, not trying to get rid of the ghosts. We're going to be setting up over at the Cartwright House."

Methos looked highly interested. "General Cartwright's ancestral home?"

"That's the one. Although he was never a real General, it was just everyone called him that and it stuck."

"Still, that's quite the account. By all known conventional wisdom, Mrs. Cartwright is a very wealthy widow."

At Methos' words, Duncan recalled the house and the widow that were in question and he felt a great deal of worry rush over him.

The house was over on LeyIves Avenue and was large and grand and worth over a million dollars easily. It was hard to know the exact worth considering it had never been sold, only inherited for three generations. Mrs. Cartwright, having come out from the East Coast, had fallen in love hard and had been married at a very tender age to the older General Haysworth Cartwright, who had made his fortune in the manufacturing trade for the Navy. It made no real sense why he hadn't lovingly been called the Admiral, but there it was. He was affectionately known as the General and that had been it. Duncan had never met the man, though he'd heard that his bearing had been slightly more militaristic than Patton's, and hence the name.

Madame Cartwright had been with the General long enough to have eleven children, and then the older by a few decades General had passed away of natural causes. The eleventh child had been born three months after his father's passing, and had been named Haysworth the third, because even though the first child had been a boy and had been christened Haysworth Junior, the newly widowed mother had been inconsolable and refused to consider any other name. Duncan understood it had caused quite a lot of confusion over the years.

That had all been years and years ago. Madame Cartwright was much older now--in her late seventies, Duncan was sure. And passing strange, even among that older set who allowed for eccentricities. So he supposed it should come as no surprise that she was hiring ghost hunters. Still. It was a big, expensive house, and there were sure to be lawyers watching their every move. Duncan could just feel the potential for calamity in the air.

"Be careful, Richie," Duncan cautioned.

"I will, don't worry. It's going to be so much fun!" Richie grabbed another apple and waltzed out the door.

Duncan turned to Methos. "Why do I always know it isn't going to turn out right when he looks that confident?"

"Because you're a very old and very wise man," Methos said. "And because it is Richie." His eyes sparkled with mischief. "You know, considering that it's going to turn out badly anyway, there's no reason for us not to intrude."

Duncan frowned. "No." He waved both hands in front of him emphatically. "No. If it all goes pear shaped, then we should have nothing to do with it."

"However you like," Methos replied and went back to reading his book.

*****

Matt and Cecil Sutton met him at the house. Their van, which was chock full of ghost hunting apparatus, was parked in the driveway.

"Hey," said Cecil, which was just about as much as Cecil ever said. He was the quiet brother and hardly ever said a full sentence. Richie supposed he was thinking deep thoughts about stuff.

"Hi, Rich," said Matt. "Glad you came. This kind of stuff is really a three person job. We'll get set-up this afternoon and then monitor everything over the night. I hope you like being nocturnal, because this is really going to play havoc with your sleeping habits!"

"No problem. I'm very excited. Let's do this," Richie replied.

Cecil reached out and hit the doorbell and the deep, gong-like chimes could be heard tolling away inside.

"That's creepy," said Richie.

"Yeah," Matt agreed. "Probably a good sign we'll find a ghost, though!"

Richie grinned and then schooled his face so he wouldn't look too unprofessional when Mrs. Cartwright answered the door.

She was a tiny woman with snow-white hair. She was dressed very practically in jeans and a sweatshirt and did not look like an insanely-wealthy widow. "Hello," she said, and her voice was as practical as her clothing. "Welcome in. I'll show you the study where you can set up. I'm very pleased you've come to take a look at the house."

Cecil and Matt went for the stuff in the truck and Richie followed Mrs. Cartwright into the study. "What sorts of ghosts do you think are here?" he asked. "Any locations you think we should concentrate on?"

"Oh, certainly," she replied. "I should think that several of the guest bedrooms upstairs would warrant consideration. And the cellar. Also, the staircase. We've had a lot of tragedies in this house, so I expect there should be a tremendous amount of ghosts. I'll be very relieved to have evidence of them."

"What happened in the cellar?" Richie despised basements. Particularly the ones that weren't basements but were cellars. Basements were generally nice and carpeted and had televisions and old couches in them. Cellars had dirt floors and an old toilet and spider webs everywhere.

"Most of it happened well before I married Haysworth, of course, so I've only heard stories." She peered over Richie's shoulder as Cecil and Matt hauled in the boxes of stuff. "Perhaps I should wait so as to give your partners opportunity to listen. That way I shan't have to repeat it."

"Of course," Richie said. "Give us a few minutes and we'll have all the equipment in." Richie hurried to help bring in the rest of the boxes and cables.

Ten minutes later, they all sat down in the living room with mugs of coffee and a plate of very unattractive cookies. Mrs. Cartwright seemed very at ease as she discussed the ghosts in the house, which Richie thought was admirable. He couldn't imagine living in a house with all sorts of ghosts. Visiting for a few nights to document them was one thing, but living here?

"The first set of ghosts I expect you'll find in the Rose Room. It's at the top of the stairs and the first door to the right. We'd had a terrible snowstorm in the early fifties and there was no travel the next day and a cousin of my husband's had been visiting. She was with child, but she wasn't due for several months yet, so no one was prepared for her to go into labor. It was a great sadness when she delivered the babe as it didn't live for more than a minute, and she had endured such a terrible labor that she died not long after. Many of my guests have noted experiences of a ghost in that room, a young woman wailing for her lost child. And often they experience the sight of the bed stained with blood."

Richie shivered and noticed that Cecil was taking a lot of notes. He was glad one of them had had the good idea to write it down, although he was sure not to forget any of them if they were all as sad and gruesome as this first one.

"The other guest room you should observe is the Willowmere Room. That is at the far end of the hallway. The last room on the left. During the Great Pandemic--" She paused to eye the three of them. "Which you may have heard about in school. The Spanish Influenza was prevalent in 1918 and it was a terrible tragedy. It was a little before my time, but its effects have been harshly felt. Quite a few relations of my husbands grew sick, as well as members of the household. The Willowmere Room was the largest room and also closest to the servants' stairwell, so anyone who grew sick was placed there. The records are not clear about how many survived and how many died, but at least one woman is known to have become ill and perish. Elizabeth Lewis, the head maid at the time. She tended to the sick for weeks, running up and down the stairwell to bring them broth or to change out the sheets. Of course she fell sick herself and then died. I've been told that she's been seen running up and down the stairs as a ghost."

"Wow," Richie said, barely breathing. He vowed not to get caught on that back stair well all alone.

"The main staircase has a story of an old aunt tripping over a worn carpet and breaking her neck," Mrs. Cartwright recounted. "And also of a young suitor who was trying to get up the stairs to his beloved and the father holding him at bay so roughly that the young man lost his balance over the banister and fell to his death." She grimaced. "That story might be false. It's widely held that he fell to his death, but from some of the letters in Haysworth's collection I believe the boy only broke a leg. He did still die of the broken leg as it caught infection and he died of that, but it wasn't here in the house. Perhaps you could answer the mystery of whether the poor boy's spirit has decided to return to haunt the location where he suffered the injury."

Richie craned his neck and could see the bottom few steps of the main staircase out in the hallway. He thought about falling over the banister, but it caused more fear about pain than of death. It wouldn't permanently kill him if he took a plunge, but it certainly sounded really nasty.

"Of course, we've also had a whole host of elderly relatives take their final breaths here. Through sicknesses or old age. Even my wonderful Haysworth passed away here in the house."

"Do you ever see him?" Rich blurted out.

"Oh, goodness no." She laughed lightly. "I wish I would, but I've never seen a single ghost yet. My guests tell me about them. Which is why I am hoping your little company might be able to prove once and for all who is here, if they are here at all. I don't believe Haysworth is among the ghosts of this house, however. He lived a good life and died a good man. He has received his reward in heaven above and is waiting there patiently for me." She looked down at her hands.

"What about the cellar?" Matt asked. "You said something about it earlier when you phoned us."

"Oh, yes, the cellar. That's the worst one, in my opinion. It happened even as the house was being built. The cellar isn't an ordinary one. It's lined with granite that had been brought in to make the walls, so that the house would be stable. But when the granite blocks were being installed some of the ropes broke and a man was crushed to death."

"That is awful," Matt said, and Richie nodded.

"Thankfully, there are not a lot of reasons to go to the cellar on a regular basis, but the electrical box is down there, and some other things are stored there, so people do have to venture down on occasion." Mrs. Cartwright sighed. "They've told me that it isn't so much that you meet up with the ghost, but rather than when you're down there that you experience the stone crushing you. Which just sounds truly terrible to experience."

Both Matt and Cecil looked shaken and Richie felt kind of oogly himself. They exchanged glances. It was certain that none of them wanted to pull cellar duty. Experience being crushed to death? No way, no thank you.

"We'll concentrate on the upper floors," Matt said. "And leave the cellar alone for now."  
After the little meeting, the three of them got to work. Richie didn't know how the equipment worked, so he ended up playing gopher more often than not, and doing the grunt work of hauling boxes around.

By the end of the afternoon they had installed motion detectors and heat sensors and some other stuff that Richie couldn't remember the names for. The Rose Room and the Willowmere Room were all set to be remotely recorded. They had even gathered their courage and put the sensors down in the cellar, though Richie was sure if any sensors went off that it would be very unlikely anyone would check on them until morning. Their plan was to camp out at the foot and the top of the staircase, which would allow a faster response time to the guest bedrooms.

Cecil was positioned at the foot of the staircase with all the monitors. Richie was placed at the top of the staircase with the digital video camera. He practiced flipping the camera modes between the different filters since he wanted to be able to do it easily. Matt would go between them if necessary.

Mrs. Cartwright came by at ten o'clock to wish them luck and goodnight and then she retired to her room.

Richie settled in with Matt and Cecil to wait out the night.

Around midnight the sensors started picking something up in the Willowmere Room and Richie and Matt rushed over there. It turned out to be a slinky calico cat that had mastered the trick of pushing the door open if it hadn't been latched tightly and curling up on the bed.

Richie shooed the cat out and Matt reset the sensors.

At two in the morning the sensors indicated a drop in temperature in the Rose Room. It hovered at a very cool sixty degrees for about an hour, but nothing else was observed.

Matt shrugged. "Sometimes it takes weeks of diligent watching before we get something. The auto-cameras might pick something up. We'll run them through the filters on the computer and see if anything appears."

Richie was starting to wonder if he was going to be bored to death on the job. Perhaps he could come back as a ghost and haunt everyone just to keep the rest of them from dying of boredom too.

The night finally ended and they gratefully left the house to catch some sleep of their own. Cecil promised to have the photo-captures analyzed by the time they met up again at nine o'clock.

*****

"Nothing, huh?" Duncan asked as soon as he saw Richie's face. The boy looked exhausted, but tediously so.

"Yeah. Quiet as the tomb," Richie said with a slight grin. "Hey, where is Adam?"

"He's been out doing his own thing since yesterday." Duncan shrugged. "So you go back again tonight?"

"Yeah."

"And if it is quiet again tonight?"

"We've got a contract to try for four nights. After that we're done." Richie wandered over to the kitchen area. "I was wondering if I you wanted to go out for pizza or something. I have to be back at the house at nine and all this staying up all night and sleeping all morning has me feeling whacked out. My stomach doesn't know what to make of it."

Duncan smiled indulgently. What Richie needed was not fast food. He needed some home-cooked food that would make him feel better. "Actually, no. I've got a lasagna in the fridge ready to go into the oven. I was waiting to see if Adam would show his face, but since you're here, how about we play some chess while it bakes?"

"That'd be so great!" Richie seemed like he might lift off with happiness. Then he cooled off. "How about we play some Fallout instead? I've got the system in the car, it'll only take a moment to set it up."

"Fallout?" Duncan echoed.

"You'll love it. And it's about time you played something that wasn't created during the mists of time."

"How about, my lasagna, so I pick the game," Duncan countered.

Richie puffed up his cheeks and blew out a breath while looking at the ceiling. Then he focused on Duncan again. "You drive a hard bargain, Mac. A hard bargain."

*****

Later that night, warmed on the inside from the lasagna but smarting from the two game losing streak, Richie waited on the stairs again.

Matt was starting to nod off next to him and Richie wondered if he'd gotten enough sleep himself, when the sensors started going off.

"Cellar," said Cecil from the base of the staircase with an expression of distaste. "Motion and thermal."

Matt exchanged glances with Richie. "I guess we go do what we get paid for."

"Probably the cat again," Richie muttered and Matt snickered.

The three of them went to the door that led down to the cellar. Standing in the far corner of the old fashioned kitchen, Richie already felt like he'd been vaulted back in time. The darkness of the night--he checked his watch, it was just after midnight--and their mission to be here was fairly making him jump out of his skin.

"We don't have to, you know."

"I know. But we said we would. Besides. We're Ghost Hunters. If we don't do this, we won't get other jobs." Matt looked like he was bracing himself.

"How many jobs have you had already?"

"Three or four. But we haven't found a ghost yet."

"Right." They stared down into the inky blackness that was the cellar stairwell.

"I'll go." Matt took a careful step forward and Richie followed close upon him.

The basement, when they got there, had only one striking difference that their flashlights pointed out. It was filled with mist. It swirled around their ankles, thick and impenetrable.

"There's no one here," Richie whispered. "Can we turn the lights on now?" He was still filming everything, but with the lights out, even with the various filters, he knew it would come out like crap.

"Yeah." Matt reached out and found the lights, and even when the lights came on, the mist was still there. "Wow. I've never seen anything like this." As he walked across the room he kicked up the mist and tendrils of it slowly swirled back down into the seething mass on the floor. "Are you getting all this?"

"Yep." Richie was impressed. A cellar full of spooky mist wasn't really all that scary, but it had a certain feel to it. Very authentic. Had it really been caused by a ghost?

After about ten minutes of filming the mist, until the mist finally vanished, seeping away into where-ever it seeped, they went upstairs.

"Willowmere," Cecile said.

Matt looked at the readings. "Motion. Probably the cat again. Come on, Rich."

It was not the cat, though. The room was somehow tinged with blue gloominess that set Richie's teeth on edge and just at the edge of his hearing were sounds.

"Do…do you hear anything?" Richie asked.

"I…I think…I do," Matt answered hesitantly. "What do you hear?"

Richie paused to listen intently. It was the low murmur of voices, the clinking of things like pots and pans, and…someone running up and down the stairs. He whirled around and stepped forward to look down the back stairwell, but it was an empty as could be.

"Richie?" Matt asked.

"It sounded like someone was coming up the stairs. And a lot of people talking--no, not talking. Moaning." Richie felt suddenly cold and scared. Lots of moaning. Like people in sickbeds. He could still hear it--almost. It was so low there was no way the microphones were going to pick it up. Hell, his breathing was louder.

Still, he lifted the video camera and diligently tried to take video. It was hard to keep the picture frame from shaking. Matt stood near him, very obviously glad to have another person nearby.

After about five minutes, he couldn't hear the sounds anymore and the room no longer had that faint blue-tinge. Maybe the camera picked that up, he hoped.

"I think it's over," he whispered.

"Okay," Matt said back, and they went back to Cecil, who told them the sensors had been picking up subsonic vibrations. No one was sleepy after that.

*****

"So then we monitored the stuff all night, but nothing else happened," Richie finished telling Duncan.

"And Madame Cartwright was happy with the footage and read outs you gave her?" Duncan had a hard time believing that she would actually be happy to know her home was haunted. If it was. Mist and low-grade voices were not especially convincing. In fact, he was wondering if the atmospheric conditions hadn't created the mist in the basement. Warm air, cold floor, and a lot of humidity would create fog.

"Absolutely happy," Richie confirmed. "Ecstatic. And now we've got some other clients because of this. It's really made their business, you know, and I'm along for the ride." Richie yawned and looked sheepish. "If I can stay awake for the ride. I need to go, Mac. I've been up for hours now and it's killing me. I gotta get some shut-eye."

"Of course. Go. You can tell me more later." Duncan waved good-bye and went to his kitchen to start a new pot of coffee. He had some accounting to catch up on and it would require a lot of effort and strict attention to detail. Still, his mind wandered. Richie's adventures in the old General's house sounded fantastic, but not so extraordinary that they could be easily dismissed. Sure, the mist could have been a natural phenomenon, and the voices could have been so many other things -- a hooting owl or a chipmunk outside that was misinterpreted because of the already influenced mind-set of the observers. But assuming that neither of those things had happened, they could have been real.

Duncan was lost in thought and lost count of his scoops into the French press when Methos came bounding in.

"Good morning," Methos called as he practically collapsed onto the couch.

"Where have you been?" Duncan asked, "And do you want coffee?"

"No where and every where," Methos replied. "No coffee, thanks. I just want a quick nap before I set off again."

Duncan paused and turned to look at Methos. His eyes were sparkling again with that well-known mischief that only a very old, very clever Immortal might have when he's up to something. And he had definite dark circles around his eyes, as if he'd been up all night long making said mischief. "What have you done?" Duncan asked suspiciously.

Methos put on an expression of complete innocence. "Research, that's all. Promise."

"Research. Into what sort of subject?"

"Houses. Inheritance law. That sort of thing."

Duncan's interest was pricked. "And what would those two things have in common at the moment to interest you?"

"Did you know, MacLeod, that in Seacouver, that the documented possibility of historical activities, which includes current public interest in said historical activities, would mean that a house if opened to the public for a minimum of hours could be placed into a particular kind of trust that would allow the inheritors to avoid all but the most basic of taxes?"

"I should have known it came down to taxes," Duncan muttered. "And this has bearing how?"

"Haunted houses are very popular tourist attractions," Methos said simply.

Duncan narrowed his eyes. "What have you been doing?"

Methos sighed, as if he were trying to be patient when explaining to a very dull-witted child. "You may or may not know that Madame Cartwright is land-rich and money-poor. The General left her with a lot of holdings, but not very much else. She'd been selling off properties for the upkeep of the ancestral home, and with her age, I think she's been looking to get that house well seeded, if you catch my meaning, so that she can pass it along to her children without the house itself having to be sold for inheritance taxes." He seemed to check Duncan's face for comprehension, and disappointed, went on. "No one was interested in the house before. Every other house in that neighborhood is old, grand, and filled with a hundred years of history. But a haunted house, now, ah!" He held up a finger. "People will pay to see that. Spend a night. Once word gets out, she'll have public interest beating down her door."

"So you helped things along. Must have caused quite a bit of trouble on your part."

"A bucket of dry ice, a couple borrowed tools and a few odds and ends, it wasn't that hard to do." Methos waved away the expense and trouble.

"But why?"

"I like to mess with Richie's head?"

"You need to do better than that."

Methos smiled warmly. "Once a girl wins your heart, even if she does choose another fellow, you always want the best for her."


End file.
